FALK FEATURE
Echo: Innovation Without Disruption
The agnostic AI cloud computing platform fusing design, manufacturing and delivery
Echo is the first platform-agnostic, cloud-based, AI, end-to-end technology to take made-to-order projects and products from a client’s design through manufacturing to delivery and installation.
For its inaugural mission, Echo is transforming the massive, notoriously technology-hesitant, building construction industry. Now architecture and construction professionals can use their standard industry software to leverage offsite prefab – the undisputed future of construction – saving thousands of hours and gaining pinpoint accuracy with prefab, without losing the ability to customize.
As a platform-agnostic cloud-native, Echo brings infinite computing power to all legacy software. Large projects are no longer broken into sections, which is the norm, to avoid crashing desktop-bound software. Echo collects and manages the project data: From early design development to virtual-reality client meetings inside the model, to pricing and pre-construction, custom modelling at the factory, manufacturing, shipping and on-site installation.
Until Echo came along, prefab platforms were programmed using manufacturers’ software rules and language for their catalogue of products. An architect’s or designer’s files could never go directly into production. Instead, someone working with the factory had to redo the design in the manufacturer’s software. This clunky, time-consuming and expensive method became next to impossible if a project required customized components. Echo makes prefab, even personalized prefab, painless.
Echo’s agnostic approach delivers collaboration without obstacles for the client too. While exploring and altering their design during a virtual-reality experience, precise pricing is produced in parallel, all while tethered to the architect’s original files, done in Revit®, for example.
When a custom component is required, Echo uses AI to assist the designer, providing feedback for configurations, exposing any errors and providing recommendations. Once the valid 3D model is produced, it’s delivered to the factory’s product development team in the software language they work in, ready for testing and production. No data transcribed. No time lost. No errors made.
For example, this large custom-designed bank lobby in a Washington DC heritage building (below) was engineered, manufactured, onsite, and constructed using Echo in just 28 days. As the client said: “If you can do this, you can do anything.”
Everyone on a project benefits from having Echo on their side.
Clients
• Client teams enter the metaverse of their space, confident any changes they make are immediately calculated for cost and structural integrity.
• Stakeholders on the project, no matter where they are in the world, gather on their smartphones and devices to take an immersive and interactive walk-through.
Design team
•All changes done in virtual reality are live-linked via Echo in the cloud, automatically updating the original file.
• Unique, custom components are delivered from the designer to the factory via a 3D model. The manufacturer’s engineers make the design ready for fabricating, testing its physical requirements and structural integrity.
• With or without custom components, design professionals never have to redesign to suit the factory outputs, nor do they need to hand over their intellectual property to be translated to barcodes for pricing and production—saving thousands of hours, dollars and arguments while allowing the design firm to leverage their billable hours to deliver the best of their abilities to their clients rather than using them to transcribe designs for a manufacturer’s software.
General Contractor
• Project managers receive down-to-the-minute updates of the project going through manufacturing.
• Once on-site, all prefab components have QR code labels created in Echo for easy locating and less handling of materials.
• Clients are fully apprised of what the finished project will be—no surprises or, worse, lawsuits.
Manufacturer
• Project details flow directly from design to the factory floor. No hold-ups waiting for drawings to be translated into production code.
• Customize while staying profitable. For the portions of the project that require custom components, Echo produces a 3D model to be detailed, tested and rerouted into fabrication with the rest of the standard production components.
• Harnessing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Echo gathers the data from all custom inputs, memorizing the patterns. It continually learns what materials are required for new components and how they are built.
• Being platform-agnostic means Echo’s inclusive power seamlessly elevates a manufacturer’s entire enterprise from client-facing to back-of-house operations: MRP, PLM, Procurement, Quality Control, Inventory, Time Sheets, Forecasting, CRM, Virtual Reality, Maintenance, Scheduling—Echo is a company-wide ERP system that works with any and all existing or new software.
As proof of its transformative power, Falkbuilt, a digital prefab component manufacturer, and its global Factory Direct Branches outperformed all expectations, thanks in large part to employing Echo as the company’s technology platform for every aspect of the business.
In just a few months, Falkbuilt raced from startup to producing large and small projects for clients worldwide, from healthcare to corporate to education. Despite getting underway just as a pandemic swept the planet, the company and its Branches recently delivered their 1000th project. Meanwhile, Echo is just getting started.